San Diego County, San Diego Rat Control Situation:
Hi David, Is a UV blacklight still useful, exterior-wise, if it rains after the rodents leave their urine stains? I am in the process of performing exterior maintenance to better exclude my roof rats. 1) I have a 25 year old cedar shake roof in San Diego California with openings under each shake along the rake edge of the roof at the gable ends of my house. There's no drip edge, i.e. under the shakes I have roofing paper (now somewhat curled) that runs more or less up to and rests right atop the fascia board. Because I have skip sheathing, and since the cross section of a shake is a wedge that is up to one inch at the upper, thick end, this appears to create many huge entry points along the rake edges even though the sheathing is rabbeted into the fascia board. As a result, I'm thinking of getting a UV blacklight to use outside the house to sleuth for urine stains along the upper edge of the gable end shakes and fascia boards. My question is, how easily does the winter rain wash away the urine, rendering this a pointless exercise? 2) I noticed a new product called "rat-out gel" and was thinking of applying it along the rake edges mentioned above. Or, maybe I should just buy many rolls of X-Clude and use that instead. Or maybe both. Any comment? Thanks very much for your website, Doug
My response: First off, I do not have experience using UV lights to detect rat urine. But I do suspect that rain will severely limit the effectiveness of this approach. I have never heard of Rat-Out Gel or XClude, but I typically stick to physical barriers rather than repellent type devices. If your roof makes this impossible, you might have a tough time keeping the rats out.
San Diego Rat Control Tip of The Week
Tips To Get Rid Of Rats In The Attic
It's normal for you to have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you keep hearing that scurrying sound coming from your attic because of the indecent activities of rats. To put an end to this weird feeling, you need to get rid of the rats living in your attic.
Have you been wanting to do this but you don't know how to go about it? Right here, we will be sharing some tips on how to get rid of rats in the attic. With the following tips, you will be able to do as you please and keep your attic free from rats.
When it comes to getting rid of rats in your attic, the first thing you need to do is to inspect your house in order for you to know exactly how the rats got into your attic. Being a very flexible animal with an ability to sneak around and pass through openings as small as a quarter of an inch, rats can enter into your attic through different openings. What this implies is that you need to inspect your attic properly to know how they got in.
The second step you need to take is to inspect your attic to know the extent to which the rats have damaged your attic. Rats in the attic are capable of chewing your wires and tearing the insulation in the roofing for their nests.
After inspecting the attic, the next thing you need to do is seal up all the entry holes that you were able to find while inspecting the attic. This should be done with durable materials that rats can't chew. Materials like this include steel screens and metal.
Lastly, you need to trap or kill the rats using either a snap trap or a one-way exclusion funnel. Do not use rat poisons to get rid of the rats in your attic. It will only create more environmental problems instead of reducing them.
